


Everyone is normal in their own way

by Phoenixfeather



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ableist Language, Canon Temporary Character Death, Drinking, Episode: s13e01 Lost and Found, Grieving Dean, Grieving Sam Winchester, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Pining Dean, Post-Episode: s13e01 Lost and Found, Supportive Sam, Team Free Will, jack isn't evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 08:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12406686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixfeather/pseuds/Phoenixfeather
Summary: Dean already has a hard time coping after Cas' death. The last thing he needs is an overgrown man-child with the power to erase the whole of Kansas from the map to remind him of the angel every time he so much as looks as him.****************Dean tries, he really does, not to risk a glance in the mirror. But it happens anyway. Maybe it’s a treacherous part of him that simply can’t give up hope just yet, maybe it’s pure habit, but his eyes flicker to the rearview mirror several times, each time causing him to flinch when he doesn’t see familiar blue eyes gazing back at him.****************





	Everyone is normal in their own way

The first time it happens is only hours after they burned him. Dean is standing in line in front of the register to pay for Baby’s gas, while Jack, under Sam’s watchful gaze, meticulously studies the Gas’n Sip’s rather limited offer of snacks, as if they were rare pieces of art.

It already takes every ounce of restraint Dean has left in his body to not immediately haul his ass out of that damn convenience store and empty the meager contents of his stomach right in front of its door. He had only seen Cas wear his Gas’n Sip vest once, but now one glance at the guy behind the register - who doesn’t even look like Cas apart from the work uniform - and he feels like someone is twisting his insides into knots.

Dean doesn't say a word while he pays for the gas. The cashier seems to sense that something is wrong and doesn't press small talk, which, has the unfortunate side effect that Sam's and Jack's conversation is the only one in the station and Dean can do nothing to tune it out.

Sam had insisted that Jack should have some more human contact besides the two of them and Dean doesn't have the energy to argue with him. He'd still rather see the Nephilim dead than anything else, but they have no way to gank him yet, so keeping him in their sight is really their only option. That, or they could let him loose on the world, consequences be damned. If Dean is honest with himself - and he has to be because lying, even just to himself, is too much of a damn effort right now - he is tempted to do just that.

How is it fair that this bastard son of Satan got to be born, while everyone who is supposed to be alive died? Mom, Crowley, Rowena, Kelly and … Cas. Cas, who never half-assed anything and never asked for help and never shared his burden.

It was always meant to be the three of them. Him, Sam and Cas. Now there are three of them, but the third feels like a cancer growing on Dean's skin, not like the link in their chain that had always been missing - the link that had been Cas.

And now his brother is explaining to that intruder the difference between chocolate and gummy bears, as if the space that Cas has left behind could just be filled by anyone.

He has to close his eyes and take a deep breath, his bottom lip trembling, before he turns around to leave the store.

Closing his eyes had been a mistake, because when he opens them again, Jack is exactly in his line of sight. The Nephilim is inspecting a bag of gummy bears with an expression of utmost concentration on his face that other people would reserve for particularly difficult math problems. His brows are drawn together and he is squinting to inspect every single bear by color and suddenly Dean feels his feed move out of their own accord. They carry him out of the building and past the Impala until he is standing in front of a large field. It takes him five minutes of counting his breath to one hundred for the racing pictures in his mind to stop. 

The second time it happens, they have almost reached Lebanon. Thankfully, Jack decided to sit at the window when they had set out towards the bunker, but apparently, he's getting bored now because about half an hour away from home, he slides into the middle-seat, places his elbows on the back of the front seat and starts asking rapid fire questions.

“I know my mother and father drove in a vehicle such as this, I heard the rumble and I heard their thoughts. You don’t talk like they did. Is it customary to never talk? My mother and Castiel used to talk and they used to think. Of course, I heard their thoughts at all times, so I never had to experience silence. My father never liked the silence, did you know? It is so silent, now that I have left my mother’s womb. She always thought such lovely things, but she was also scared. Her heartbeat was always there, but sometimes it was so quick and her thoughts were racing and hard to keep up with. Now the only heartbeat I can hear is my own. Do you miss your mother’s heartbeat as I do?”

Dean’s knuckles turn white on the steering wheel, but Sam turns around, ridding him of the chance to blow up in Jack’s face. 

“We don’t remember our time in our mother’s womb. In fact, all humans don’t. You’re special in that regard.”

Jack cocks his head to the side and the smooth skin between his eyebrows crinkles.

“That sounds terribly lonely.” He says it as if he genuinely feels for them. Dean stares right ahead, refusing to take his eyes off the road.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Jack lean back in his seat, but the nephilim doesn’t move over to sit by the window again. Instead he stays in the middle.

Dean tries, he really does, not to risk a glance in the mirror. But it happens anyway. Maybe it’s a treacherous part of him that simply can’t give up hope just yet, maybe it’s pure habit, but his eyes flicker to the rearview mirror several times, each time causing him to flinch when he doesn’t see familiar blue eyes gazing back at him.

Again, Sam seems to sense what he needs. He turns around to look at Jack, maybe to convey the importance of his request through his expression and asks him to move back to the window seat.

Amidst the empty, seemingly endless void that has cloaked Dean’s every emotion since he set Cas’ pyre aflame, he feels a glimmer of love and affection for Sam, fighting its way to the surface. It’s so intense and unexpected that he has to close his eyes for a moment.

They don’t talk again until they have reached the bunker.

The place is a mess, but Dean doesn’t find it in himself to care. In fact, he feels a strange satisfaction when he looks at the pieces of rock scattered around, at the dust that has settled on every surface. For the first time, his environment doesn’t completely contradict the turmoil inside of him.

He leaves Sam to deal with the worst of it and goes directly to his laptop.

It only takes him about an hour to find something that just might be a case and if it were up to him, they’d leave immediately, but of course, there’s still the devil’s man-baby, slumming it in their kitchen. Eventually he settles on calling another hunter to deal with it.

He hates it. He wants to keep moving, get himself as far as possible from the place where he wanted to settle with his little family of misfits that is now irreversibly torn apart. But he can’t - or he’d have to leave Sam alone with Jack. The thought of what might happen then does the seemingly impossible and causes the fierce protectiveness for Sam that’s always sleeping in his heart to rase it’s head and roar in worry.

So Dean does the only thing he can think of: He gets himself a six pack to drink while he is searching for cases and a bottle of whiskey for later - striding in and out of the kitchen without sparing Jack even a glance - and readies himself for a sleepless night of research. Hopefully, the alcohol will eventually give him a dreamless night of sleep, but he knows he really has to tire himself out for that to happen.

Sam comes into his room at some point, but Dean barely hears what he’s saying and only grunts in response. He is surprised when he looks up later and finds that a plate with two sandwiches has been placed on his nightstand. He doesn’t touch them. He makes the switch from bear to whiskey at 4 am and by 5 am, he feels his eyes go heavy from inebriation as well as fatigue. He lets them fall shut, his laptop still on his legs and drifts into a state of blissful oblivion.

Thankfully, he really doesn’t have any nightmares. For one blessed moment - when he wakes up and his senses gradually start to come back to him - there is only his breathing and the pounding in his head, but then the events of the previous days come rushing back to him in one forceful wave that threatens to drown him instantly. If he were awake enough, he would have physically recoiled, but instead he just opens his eyes - and then recoils anyway.

There is someone sitting in the chair by his bedside. In the meager light coming from the corridor, he can’t see the figure’s face, but for one soaring moment, he truly believes that if the figure leaned forward and the light shone on their face, there would be blue eyes gazing into Dean’s, paired with a familiar lopsided smile and a slightly raised brow.

The illusion is shattered instantly though. The figure does lean forward, but instead of the blue eyes Dean has come to associate with warmth and familiarity and fierce belonging, there is glistening gold staring back at him. Jack’s eyes are glowing and he looks so alien that Dean instinctively reaches for the blade under his pillow, as if it would be of any use to him in a fight with the Nephilim.

The red-hot anger that had been bubbling under his all-encompassing grieve before suddenly reaches the surface.

“Get out!” He spits the words out like they are acid on his tongue.

The glow in Jack’s eyes fades. He cocks his head to the side, looking at Dean as if the hunter is a particularly difficult puzzle to solve.

“I heard you crying in your sleep”, Jack’s tone is flat and more curious than empathetic.

So there had been nightmares after all and Dean just doesn’t remember them. He takes a long, staggering breath.

“Get out of my room and go to sleep”, he says, his voice low and quiet. If he weren’t whispering, he would be screaming.

Jack sits a bit straighter again. Everything about his posture is weird. He has folded his legs under the chair, so that only the tips of his toes are touching the ground, but his upper body is strangely stiff, his hands clasped in his lap.

“I don’t think I can”, he muses and he sounds as if he is carefully reflecting on each word before it leaves his mouth. “I’m not tired and when I close my eyes, I feel …”

Dean feels something snap inside of him and there’s nothing he can do as the anger finally bubbles to the surface.

“I don’t care what you feel. GET OUT!” He is breathing fast now, and starts to half rise from his bed. How DARE Jack sit in that chair! How dare he be so much like Cas and yet not him! How dare he occupy any space that should have been Cas’!

Jack doesn’t even look affronted or hurt, just slightly confused. But he finally does as he is told and leaves.

Dean grabs the bottle on his nightstand and takes a long swig. His eyes won’t leave the chair for another four hours.

Eventually, they need to leave the bunker again, if only to get food. Sam wants to take Jack into town with him, convinced that he’ll be able to keep the Nephilim under control by himself, but Dean isn’t having it. So he doesn’t touch a bottle for a few hours and takes a shower to appear at least somewhat presentable. The five-day beard stays on though and there’s nothing he can do to combat the permanent bruise-colored shadows that have taken residence under his eyes.

They drive to the nearest Walmart to get all of their shopping done at once. Jack has learned by now, or maybe Sam told him, not to speak too much in Dean’s presence, so the drive is both blissfully and painfully silent.

Dean still can’t handle more than two minutes of conversation at once. Even when he called other hunters to pass along the cases he had found on his endless crusade to distract himself, he always sticks to the information he has to pass along and cuts them off before they can start any sort of small-talk.

Their shopping list is longer than usual, due to Jack’s considerable appetite for sweets. Dean’s contribution to the shopping cart is mainly several six packs of beer.

Sam leaves him be, although he does look concerned.

The trip is remarkably quiet, considering that they have a less than one year old all-powerful being with them that could probably level the entire state of Kansas if he felt like it.

They do get a few weird looks at Jack’s intense reactions to seemingly mundane things, but Dean doesn’t even notice them until they are at the cash register.

Dean and Sam are loading their groceries onto the conveyor belt, while Jack just touches it as it moves forward, seemingly fascinated by the sensation. Dean doesn’t even try to suppress his eyeroll.

Sam has to physically nudge Jack to move as the line progresses. He steers him forward with one hand while the other is holding their shopping list.

“Oh shit!”, he exclaims. “Sorry guys, I forgot the vegetable oil and vinegar. I need that for salad dressings. I’m gonna be back in a second.”

And he’s gone. Dean doesn’t bother to tease him for the salad comment. He just waits with his arms crossed as the cashier slides their groceries over the barcode scanner one by one and another clerk starts packing their backs. He is so lost in his dark thoughts that he doesn’t even notice when the cashier suddenly stops.

Jack has placed his hand on the glass surface of the scanner, a small smile on his lips.

The cashier frowns.

“Hey! What are you doing there? Move your hand!”

Jack doesn’t remove his hand, he just looks at her with a slightly disappointed expression on his face.

“Hey, I’m talking to you. Are you dense?” The cashier is definitely getting impatient, now and more customers are starting to stare.

Dean feels his pulse pick up and to his own surprise, he finds that it isn’t in anger towards Jack.

“I liked it when you did that. Why did you stop?” Jack asks, genuinely curious. “The electrical currents were tickling my grace -”

Dean clears his throat very loudly, and finally steps forward. Even though there is still a part of him that wants to stay as far away from Jack as humanly possible, he lays one hand on his shoulder, and pulls the Nephilim’s hand away from the register with the other.

“Okay … okay, that’s enough”, and a bit louder than strictly necessary he adds. “Nothing to see here.”

He hears someone giggling behind them and almost feels his temper that he already has so little control of these days, boil over. But when he turns around, it’s just a little girl and her laugh doesn’t seem malicious at all.

In fact, she is looking at Jack with a mixture of awe and delight on her face. When both Dean and Jack turn their eyes on her, she shrinks away a little to hide behind her mother's legs, who doesn’t seem to be too happy with the situation she’s currently in.

“‘M sorry”, the little girl says and her eyes widen even more as she peeks around from behind her mother to look up at Jack, who, Dean suddenly realizes, might look like a grown man, but really isn’t even a tenth of this girl’s age. She seems to gather her courage before she quickly adds, “I really like your wings.”

Dean involuntarily tightens his grip on Jack’s shoulder, as a wave of emotions threatens to swallow him whole. So Jack really has wings and they were probably whole and healthy and unmarred, so different from the state that Cas’ wings had been in. And children were able to see them. Dean hadn’t even known that, had never bothered to ask ...

He only faintly registers that Sam is back at their side, slightly breathless, but with vegetable oil and vinegar in his hands, while Jack moves away from them and leans down towards the girl.

“I like them, too. Though I haven’t really had any opportunity to try them out yet.”

Apparently, the mother has had enough. She yanks back her daughter, who’d made some tentative steps towards Jack again and gathers her up in her arms.

“Hey!” She’s addressing Sam and Dean, while completely ignoring Jack. “Get that retard away from my daughter!”

Dean isn’t quite sure why he sees red at those words. Of course, the slur angers him, but it’s not just the fact that it was directed at Jack. It isn’t even just this one woman he suddenly wants to strangle with his bare hands. He’d seen Cas get ostracized for being different by humans and angels alike, never quite in this manner, maybe, but still … And Dean … Dean hadn’t been there for him and stopped it. In fact, he had often rolled his eyes as well, because Cas didn’t understand something or didn’t behave in the way that would be considered “normal”.

He takes a step towards the woman, but Sam grabbed him by the arm to hold him back.

“Don’t. She’s carrying her kid.”

Dean let’s himself be pulled back. Of course, he wouldn’t have physically attacked an innocent, if vile woman in the middle of a supermarket while her child is in her arms. He would have probably just shouted profanity at her.

Instead, it’s Sam who turns towards her. His anger isn’t red hot and seething close to the surface like Dean’s. Instead, there is a coldness to him that Dean hasn’t seen to this extent since the days of the Mark of Cain.

“I hope you realize that you haven’t gained anything by turning this exchange in this direction. The language you used is entirely inappropriate in any context and towards anyone and I hope you’ll set a better example for your daughter in the future by asking when you do not understand something, instead judging people because of your preconceived notions.”

Sam doesn’t give her a chance to come up with a reply. He turns his back to her, pays for their groceries with one of their counterfeit credit cards and proceeds to lead Dean and Jack out of the store.

Dean is thankful that once again, Sam took the lead. He doesn’t know what he should be feeling. For the first time, he feels something other than resentment and grief when he looks at Jack. The anger isn’t gone. The fear and suspicion haven’t left him, but there had been a strange sensation in that Walmart, a surge of fierce protectiveness, that may still have been tied to Cas, but had also been unmistakably directed towards Jack.

They still don’t talk when they load in their groceries, but there is a different quality to the silence between them. It’s far from comfortable, but it does seem to hold a potential now, as if all three of them are collectively holding their breath, ready to open the channels of communications when all of them are ready.

Even Jack seems to pick up on the atmosphere. Or perhaps he’s too deep in thought as well to start a conversation or ask them questions.

Finally, he seems to have reached some conclusion, for he moves to the middle seat again and makes eye contact with Dean through the rearview mirror.

“I did something to upset that woman, didn’t I?”

Dean shoots Sam a look, who gives a slight nod.

“Nothing you did warranted what she said to you, Jack”, Sam begins. “Some people are like that. They see someone or something they don’t understand and get afraid, so they lash out.”

“Am I that different from humans?” Jack asks.

Dean has to hold back a snort.

“Honestly”, Sam answers. “Yes, you’re pretty different. but that’s not an inherently bad thing.”

“Maybe you should hold back on the talk about grace and w- and wings though”, Dean adds.

“Why?”, Jack looks genuinely puzzled and for the first time Dean realizes that the Nephilim really has no way of knowing these things, given how limited his experience with human-beings has been so far.

“Because”, Sam takes over again, “most people have no idea the supernatural exists. They don’t know about angels or demons.”

“I still don’t understand why she didn’t just ask then”, there is something defensive about Jack’s voice now.

Sam turns around in his seat to look at Jack, his eyes growing soft.

“Some people will always look at anyone who is only slightly outside the norm and choose to judge and ridicule.  Those people will do that to anybody. It’s not just you. I’ve had to deal with that, Dean has had to deal with that”, he throws Dean a quick, assessing look, “Cas had to deal with that.”

Dean feels his throat constrict in pain as he hears his own thoughts vocalized for the first time. His eyes drift to the rear-view mirror again and even though he still doesn’t see the person he wishes more than anything was sitting in the back seat, the gaping hole inside of him feels slightly less empty this time.

* * *

 

They don't talk about what happened in the Walmart for days. Most of the time, Dean doesn't even think about it.

However, there is a slight shift in his behavior. He still has to keep himself busy at all times to hold the memories at bay, but the more days go by, the less alcohol is involved in the process.

Five days after their grocery run, he finally plucks up the courage to start cleaning the car. It's still covered in the mud and dust from the lake side.

It shouldn't feel like having to say good-bye all over again, but it does. Finally, here, where only the Impala can see it, he lets the tears flow that had refused to come when he had stood by the funeral pyre and watched the ashes of the angel he loved fly towards the sky.

He's about halfway done, when a voice causes him to flinch.

“I know you don't want me here.”

Dean takes a deep breath, braces himself.

“Then why did you come in here?”

“I'm not talking about the -”

“I know you're not talking about the garage!” Dean interrupts him. He sighs and hangs his head. That one he brought on himself.

“You miss him.” Jack states it plainly, like an indisputable fact and maybe that's what makes it so easy for Dean to be honest as well.

“I do.”

Dean had expected some kind of profound statement to follow, some kind of great reconciliation, but it never comes.

“I miss him, too”, Jack simply replies. He lowers his eyes and wrings his hands, as if he doesn't know what else he could say either and for the first time, Dean acknowledges that he really is, in many ways, still a child, despite his insane growth spurt directly after his birth.

“Hand me that rack”, Dean says and points towards the utensils to Jack's right. Jack does as he is told and Dean puts a generous amount of car wash detergent on it.

“You can clean the rear end. Be careful not to scratch anything, you capiche?”

“I capiche.”

It's another call-back to a time long gone, another painful reminder of what Dean has lost, the chances he wasted.

He feels the tears well up in his eyes once more and quickly places the rack in Jack's hands so he can turn around and wipe them away.

It's not an olive branch quite yet, but it's a start.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you liked it!  
> If you have the time, pleace leave a comment. You'd make my day, even if you only shout gibberish at me. :D  
> Thanks goes to silvie111 over on tumblr for beta reading this on a very short notice.


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